Small Army Defeats a Large Army?

Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae, August 2, 216 B.C. 87,000 Romans defeated by 41,000 Carthaginians. 75000 or so Romans killed, 10,000 taken prisoner. 8000 or so Carthaginians killed.

1st, Sparta didn't defeat the Persians in Thermopylae, they held them off for 3 days, but all died in the end. The Battle of Plataea a year later would be a better example of Spartan lead tactics where 40,000 Greek City states fought 70,000 - 120,000 Persian and their Greek allies.

The Rourke's Drift battle, the Six Day War and the Finn's defense of Finland during WW2 examples are some of the best here. Also for sieges would be the Battle of Bastogne by our 101st ABN DIV in December 1944 during WW2. You want the enemy to break themselves while attacking you and you come out still intact. Not an Alamo or Dien Bien Phu deal.

The Battle of Trenton lead GEN. George Washington during the American Revolution showed how a surprised attack on Christmas Eve overwhelmed a defensive force of slightly superior, highly trained numbers can work. After a brief struggle, nearly the entire Hessian force was captured, with negligible losses to the Americans. The battle boosted the Continental Army's flagging morale, and inspired re-enlistments.

Overall the American Revolution War showed a smaller force defeating the WORLD'S nearly largest, but best trained army AND navy at the time after 8 years of combat. Yes, there was helped from the French, Dutch, Native American allies, but the U.S. military still had to do the 'heavy lifting' throughout.

And unlike most wars and battles which are unfortunetly soon forgotten afterwards...you can see the outcome of what the world would be like if this war had been lost.

The size of the Army does not really matter much. It hasn't really mattered since the First World War.

If you are marching at each other in box formations and shooting, the number of riflemen does have an impact. But in the armored maneuver warfare that has been the norm since the Second World War what really matters is speed, skill with equipment and control of the air.

One obvious example that comes to mind is the First Gulf War. The United States and coalition forces were about 600,000, the Iraqis were over a million.

Another example to consider the German Wehrmacht invading the low-countries and France in 1940. The faced the much larger combined forces of England and France.

Rorkes Drift

Rorke's Drift was a mission station in Natal, South Africa, situated near a natural ford (drift) on the Buffalo River.

During the Anglo-Zulu War, the defence of Rorke's Drift (22 January-23 January 1879) immediately followed the British Army's defeat at the Battle of Isandlwana earlier in the day. One hundred and thirty-nine British soldiers successfully defended their garrison against an intense assault by four to five thousand Zulu warriors. The overwhelming Zulu attack on Rorke's Drift came a hair's breadth away from defeating the tiny British garrison. The successful defence of the outpost is held as one of history's finest defences.

Tis battle is also depicted in the old film Zulu..

Some of the biggest are:

Finnish Army in the 1939-1940 Winter War

The Confederate Army in the American Civil War

The Spartans at Thermoplyle

French Foreign Legion at Dien Bien Phu

check them out

Ethiopian defeat the Italian

Vietnamese defeat French Foreign Legion in the battle of Dien Bien Phu in Indochina War

The Confederacy had about a fourth the troops of the Union Army. Even untrained and outnumbered the Confederacy defeated Union troops for two years. The surprise about the civil war is not that the South was defeated. The surprise is that it took an industrial nation with far more people so long to defeat them.

Operation Desert Storm 1991

Operation Iraqi Freedom 2003

All of the Arab-Isreali wars

Well This... Is... Show us how hollywood washing all of your brains. 300 is just a movie based of Frank Millers cartoons whicj named 300 spartans. And Also This cartoons based on Heredoths Myths... I mean all of'em fantasies.Also even in movie they are not defeating Persian army. They are holding them in back of line and all of'em dying but greeks woke up when they die. Anyway I'll tell you some REAL happenings from my history.

Battle of Manzikert / 26 August 1071

Byzantines 40,000 - Turks 20.000 - 25.000 (Turks won)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_manzikert

First Crusade 1095-1099

Crusaders 600.000 - Turks 50.000 (Turks won But 70.000 remaining crusaders took Jerusalem. Ps. Jerusalem was an arab-jew city Not a Turkish one)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

Second Crusade 1147–1149

Crusaders 520.000 - Turks 60.000 + 5.000 Arab (Turks Won)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

Battle of Varna (10 December 1444)

(Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Poland, Papal States, Croatia, Serbia, Bohemia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Holy Roman - Germen Empire) 352.000 - Ottoman Turks, 50.000 (Turks won)

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/623523/B...

Turkish War of Independence (19 May 1919 - 24 July 1923)

Allies (Britishes, Frenchs, Italians, Russians, Greeks, Ottoman Turkish forces, Arabs, Armenians, Kurds, Colonial Africans, Colonial Indians, Aussies, New Zaelanders etc) Almost 1.000.000 - Turks 350.000 (Turks won)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_war_of_indepe...

American Army at the Battle of New Orleans